LOS ANGELES – Gustavo Dudamel’s four-part Los Angeles Philharmonic Beethoven festival at Disney Hall reached Installment Three on Feb. 6, but the main event was a reprise of probably the most celebrated product of Dudamel’s Latin American Music Initiative, Gabriela Ortiz’s six-part feminist ballet Revolución diamantina — which loosely translated means Glitter Revolution. Forty-three minutes long, the work is a dramatization of feminist protests that took place in Mexico City in 2019 and 2022 in response to police brutality toward women up to and including rape. Some of the protesters threw clouds of pink glitter at the chief of police; hence the naming of that protest as the “Glitter March.”
The world premiere took place in November 2023 with this conductor and orchestra as part of the loosely organized California Festival, where it bowled over a lot of us with its irresistible, percussion-driven grooves and innovative use of eight women’s voices shouting rhythmic syllables. (Ortiz cribbed liberally from Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring in Parts 3 and 4, but what she did with it transcends any accusations of theft.)
This time, though, there were dancers on hand from Brazil’s Grupo Corpo, fulfilling Ortiz’s original conception of this piece as a ballet. It made all the difference, for what was once just a spectacular orchestral showpiece now felt like genuine dance music on a high level in the classical sense. As choreographed by Rodrigo Pederneiras and Cassi Abranches, the dancers wrestled, and cavorted. Starting in Part 2, the interactions between the half-clothed men and women began to resemble brutal rapes.
What came off in the world premiere and the subsequently released Platoon recording of the ballet (available digitally only, alas) as a celebration of rhythm and voice now seemed to develop ominous undercurrents of violence. In the Finale, all was mostly calm as the 22 dancers came together onstage for the first time as if to provide a conclusion of mutual understanding and hope for a tolerant future.
Ortiz’s brand of rhythmically charged music landed squarely in Dudamel’s Latin American wheelhouse the first time out, and he seemed to find even greater depth this time while still getting the LA Phil to groove wildly. The only quibble I had was that the eight amplified female singers from the Los Angeles Master Chorale, stationed on the extreme right side of the stage, could not be heard as clearly as they were on the recording; they blended into the entire sonic picture instead of standing out. Maybe unity of balance is what Dudamel wanted this time to make a point, but I would have liked to hear more sharply articulated syllables above the fray. Whatever. It’s still a fantastic piece, guaranteed to thrill.
Over four weeks in February and March, Dudamel’s four-part LA Phil observance of the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death consisted of just a couple of symphonies, the Missa Solemnis (which he’d never conducted before) and a radically updated presentation of the incidental music to Egmont with actress Cate Blanchett narrating a new text that referenced the words of Renee Good and the ICE agent who killed her. All of the concerts except Missa paired Beethoven with contemporary works. Now that’s bringing Beethoven, the progressive musician and sometime freedom fighter, into the 21st century.
For Installment Three on Feb. 26, opposite Ortiz’s ballet, Dudamel led off the concert with his latest take on Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, the leaping, bounding, life-affirming canvas that Wagner famously called “the apotheosis of the dance.” Dudamel’s very first recording as a conductor, made 20 years to the month before this performance, featured the Beethoven Seventh, a rambunctious, not really well-played rendition with the Simón Bolívar Orchestra that ended with a dizzyingly fast scramble through the Finale – so fast that it goes by in a blur. Dudamel’s concept hasn’t changed much since then – give or take a few observances of repeats. It remains a rough-and-ready, knock-’em-out trundle over a rocky road, maybe a little more graceful in spots, and certainly better played by this world-class band.
